


Studies in Alternative Brain Functions

by m_feys



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: ADHD, Crying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, both troy and annie have adhd in this, it can be read as annie/troy/abed if you WANT, neurodivergent characters, roomate feelings jam, troy pov, very headcanon heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-06 20:58:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15894030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_feys/pseuds/m_feys
Summary: Beginner course in self-acceptance. Students in this course will be expected to open up to the class and let go of harmful expectations. If taken with the sister course: Cohabitation and Roommate Theory, extra credit will be offered for the final exam.





	Studies in Alternative Brain Functions

**Author's Note:**

> Whew, does anyone read fic for this show anymore
> 
> Ok, I initially wrote this under the assumption that because Annie got addicted to adderall it was because she was prescribed it and overdosed. I just thought her having adhd had never been explored in canon and wanted to do it bc I thought it would be really interesting for her. I have now been informed that it is mostly people who don't have adhd who abuse adderall, because it affects them differently and that often people use it to boost their productivity and that that is what the show was going for, which makes sense.  
> but! I have also been informed that it affects different people differently and she could have been prescribed it and took it too far like I imagined. So the story goes on!
> 
> not really any warnings, theres no real mention of her addiction in the fic. Troy does get kinda down on himself in the fic with internalized stuff, annie too, but its hurt/comfort for a reason. hope you enjoy <3

New thoughts always sprout in Troy's head, like newborn baby plants. He enjoys the imagery for a moment, of sunflower babies smiling up at him, toothless and chubby faces surrounded by petals.  
He just forgets to tend to them sometimes. Even as important things linger in his head, sometimes he neglects them. Kinda like football, but different too.

"What's it like for you?" He asks Annie one night, knees curled up to his chest as they sit in the blanket fort. Abed is taking a shower like he does before the nightly routine of a movie or tv. So that his hair is dry before bed and he doesn't have to wake up too early. It's a good system, Troy thinks, and he would follow suit if the regimen of getting up to shower in the morning, well-rested or no, hadn't been chiseled into his psyche.

"What's what like?" she asks. Her legs are splayed in front of her and he can see the boxers she wears under her nightgown so she can feel comfortable sitting however she likes at home. He likes them, it makes her look like she's wearing a really long silky tank top, which is pretty amusing. And it feels way more real than the Annie that always sits with her legs crossed and has her hair all perfectly straight every morning. Right now, her hair is still wet from her own shower, and curling slightly at the more dry parts.

He's heard the words enough times to remember how to pronounce them. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But maybe he's still afraid he'll get it wrong. His mouth has never been good at remembering the sounds of words.

"ADHD," he says simply instead. He doesn't need the big words anyway, Annie can make up for those in spades, he knows, and this is quicker anyway.

"Oh," She says quietly, staring down at her knees now and messing with the hem of her too long tank top.

And it was weird, before Annie, Troy had sort of thought all kids like him were dumb and too loud and didn't like or care about stuff like school, and work, and sitting for too long. Like it was ADHD that made him dumb or something. That was dumb of him too, he guesses, but that was always how everyone made it sound.  
Then there had been Annie and what she had said, it had made him realize: Maybe he was just a failure. Maybe he was just the dumb one, because maybe she really was meant to succeed if she could do things he couldn't, like sit still and write papers and score well on tests and everything else. Maybe he was just a failure. And even if he didn't mess up right then and there, who's to say the next day he wouldn't? When college scouts come sniffing and he fumbles? Or after that, when he's playing more and more football, what if he just doesn't measure up? What if then he's just the dumb failure who can't get anything right. So it had been easier, easier just to mess up on purpose right then and there, instead of not knowing.

"Its like... everything at once," she says slowly, "like I can't turn my brain off, its always jumping to the next step."  
He hums and nods once.  
"What about you, Troy?" She looks at him, and she looks soft.

"I don't know if it's like that." He half smiles, reluctantly picking words out and picking at the fuzz on one of the blankets under him.  
"It kinda like, slower, I guess? Like I think of just one thing at a time mostly, but its like never there for super long? I don't know." He says and she nods. And he thinks he shouldn't have asked because answering her back felt like ripping open a teeny tiny box he kept locked inside him, breaking the lock in the process, so something could come spilling out. One of many teeny tiny boxes he keeps. He doesn't like the ache in his chest the content of the box brings, or the way it makes his eyes prick.

"I was never good at like smart stuff like you though, but that's just cause I'm dumb," He says and his voice is thick and he's trying to smile again but it's not really working.

"Troy, I--" she breaths out, but stops. And Troy curls his head down into his knees. Trying not to let out any audible cues that he's crying, but failing as he sniffles.  
There's a shuffling sound, then the pillows beside him are sinking down with another person's weight as her arm loops around his shoulders.  
He can't help but lean into her and let it out. The tiny box is open now and the little lock has been shattered.

"What happened?" Abed's voice calls clearly from the edge of the blanket fort. He finished his shower.

"Troy is sad," Annie whispers, but Troy can hear because she's right next to him.  
They don't say anything else but Troy imagines Annie gesturing him over because the next thing he knows Abed is settling on the other side of him. He can't help but be relieved, because yeah, Annie is nice, but Abed is _Abed_.

He hopes she doesn't take offense when he leans away from her and into his best friend's chest. But there was something about Abed, that was so comforting to him, maybe it was that he had never cared if Troy got emotional.  
If he cried in front of Annie he got pity and sometimes that slow tone people used when they thought he was being stupid, and maybe he was. But Abed was different, that was all. If he was stupid or if he cried too much, or couldn't sit still, Abed wouldn't mind. He would just be there in solidarity.

Annie's arm was pulling away from him then, and Abed's longer bonier one was settling around his shoulders in her place.  
It was a long bout of silence all but their breathing before Troy lifted his head to look out at the hanging blankets that marked the entrance of the blanket fort.  
His cheeks were still shiny with tears but he couldn't really bring himself to care, not around them.

"I pretend to be asleep most nights," Annie said suddenly, talking fast and loud, and Troy was looking over at her.  
She had her lips pressed together, eyes wide. He squinted at her in confusion.

"I know," Abed said simply behind him and Annie was blinking in shock then.

"Wait-- you do?"

"You're awake most nights at three A.M., right?"

"H-how do you know that?" she sputtered.

"I noticed the light was on a few times and sometimes when me and Troy would stay up late, I would hear things from your room."

Troy blinked at all this new information, "Wait, why didn't you mention that? She could have joined us for late-night marathons!" He twisted around to give Abed a furrowed-brow confused look, complete with his mouth pulled into a little 'o'.

He shrugged, "I figured she had a reason."

Troy frowned and turned back to Annie, "Why are you telling us this?" If she was trying to avoid invitations to their late-night marathons, why would she tell them now?

She was twisting her hands together now, worrying her lip between her teeth. He liked that worrying could be used to describe a physical action, it was perfect for Annie in moments like these, _worrying_ in more ways than one.  
"I like to pretend I can get a full nights sleep even though I've never actually been able to!"

Troy frowns again and finds the wrinkle between his brows deepening.

"Its like, if I let go of any of my routines I just stop functioning, like, it all crumbles. Like after... _school_ ," she says slowly and it takes Troy a second to realize she means high school rather than six P.M. when they all meet in the study room after all of their classes.

"High school," he mutters, both for Abed's benefit and to check his own understanding.  
She nods and Abed hums behind him.

"It was like, I couldn't do anything suddenly, I couldn't even take care of myself. And-- and now its like, if I'm not taking notes in all my classes, its like, I'm not even hearing what the teacher is saying I'm already in the next class thinking about what I need to do there. And if I don't have a full night's rest and my straight hair and my _face_ ," she gestures wildly at her self, panicked and wide-eyed as she talks too fast. "Maybe-- maybe I'm slipping again, and I can't slip again, because what if that's my whole life!? Just _slipping_! I have to know what I'm doing!"

Troy watches her, feeling surprisingly even, even after having ripped open his own tiny box. It looked like Annie opened up one of her own. And he wonders if maybe she's trying to ward him off from wanting to be her, from jealousy. Or maybe, he moves away from thinking about himself, things just bubbled to the surface like they do sometimes with Annie when things become too much for her, he gets that. When the _everything_ she must think of every day becomes too much.  
He watches her for a second, as her eyes shine and she picks at a loose thread in one of the pillowcases; how he must have looked a few minutes ago.

"You don't have to be perfect, Annie." He says quietly, and he thought she knew that. She didn't have to be perfect. "Not around us."

But her face is squinching as tears escape her eyes and he opens his arms and she's falling into them.  
"I'm sorry, Troy," she sobs into his chest and he smooths a hand down her hair, still damp. "I-- I'm sorry if I made you feel dumb, or-- or like you couldn't do anything-- anything you wanted. You-- you could. And I get it," her voice breaks over the words, raw and honest, "it's like nothing you could ever do would be _right_ , to make up for how-- how you're _supposed_ to be."

He doesn't say anything, doesn't know what to say, because _yeah_. What she said hits him hard and heavy and fast in the chest, a football with no padding would be an apt metaphor, as much as he wants to use a different one.  
Wetness gathers in the corners of his eyes,  _yeah_ , expectations have always been like football for him, just piling on until he drops the ball and Annie _gets_  that too. Which he never would have imagined three-- or even _one_ year ago.  
So, "yeah," he murmurs and bows his head to hide his face in her hair and lets warm tears join the moisture lingering in her hair.

Abed is still behind him but his arm is withdrawn now and Troy wonders how he's feeling about all this. Maybe he's going to open a locked box too.  
"You can stop pretending now though," Abed offers then, speaking slowly and with purpose, his tone just as even as always.

"What?" she mumbles, sounding stuffy and lifting her head slightly to glance over Troy's shoulder. He twists to look at him too.

"You can stop pretending now," he repeats, "it might be easier and it'll be more fun having you around for movie nights." He lifts one hand gesturing towards them before dropping it abruptly in the same motion, back to its deliberate movements of twisting his fingers together in his lap.  
Annie is sitting up now, wiping her eyes and looking at him, and Troy does the same, scooting to turn so he can see both of them.  
"And I don't think you're slipping, Annie. And if you are, we're here to catch you."

Annie launches herself at him then, Wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face into his pajama shirt. Troy wonders if the buttons hurt her cheeks and thinks he should try it out for himself some time, just to see.  
"Thanks, Abed," she says, sniffling and muffled by cotton PJs.

Abed keeps his arms at his sides where they're trapped by her arms, rather than trying to free them and hug her back he simply looks down at the top of her head.  
"No problem," Abed says simply and Troy is feeling very empty and very full right at that moment. With the wet spot on his t-shirt, Annie's words in his head, his empty tiny box, and his friends hugging in front of him. And he wonders if they feel the same way.

Troy is piling on then too, wrapping his arms around both of them, "I love you guys," Troy says, voice thick and close to tears and not feeling ashamed.

_You don't have to be perfect, not around them._

As Abed turns stare at him, face _way_ too close to Troy's as their noses brush, his face gets warm. And Troy thinks he might be close to unlocking another one of those teeny tiny boxes. And maybe that's a good thing.

"So, can we watch the movie now?"

**Author's Note:**

> Been rewatching community lately and I still love it so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Comments are appreciated always, though I don't always reply


End file.
